Lying, Holding Legs UpPose Reference
Camera angles
Lying, Holding Legs Up puts the wooden figure on its back with both straight legs raised vertically together and the hands clasping them at the knees.
Tags: lyingon backlegs upstretchingfull body
How to draw the Lying, Holding Legs Up pose
three-quarter view 
side view 
back view 
high-angle view
The body reads as a right angle. The pelvis and the back of the head stay on the floor, and the legs rise from the hips like a single column, knees and ankles touching, with the feet softly pointed at the top. Each hand wraps the outside of a knee, so the elbows bend and splay sideways and frame the thighs like the handles of a jug. The pull of those arms curls the upper back a little off the ground toward the legs, which is the detail that separates this stretch from a passive rest: the trunk is working, not lying limp.
For drawing, the side angle from the figure's left gives the cleanest statement of the shape: a low, slightly rounded torso line meeting a tall vertical at the hip. Check that the angle between them is close to ninety degrees and that the curl lifts the shoulders, not the waist. The front view looks straight down the raised legs from beyond the feet, so thighs, shins and pointed feet collapse into heavy foreshortening and the face hides behind the knees. The high angle shows how far the elbows flare and how the forearms cross the thighs.
More on angles and common mistakes
Common errors come from treating the legs as two separate poles. Keep them parallel and pressed together, with the knee joints level. Another mistake is lifting the hips off the floor, which turns the hold into a rocking roll; the pelvis should stay heavy and flat. Avoid moving the hands down to the shins, which would force the shoulders much higher than the gentle curl shown here. The floor itself is not shown, only implied by the contact shadow, so draw a mat or ground plane if the scene needs one.
This lying on back holding legs up pose suits fitness illustration, warm-up and cool-down sequences, hamstring stretch diagrams and lazy floor moments in comics. In Edit this pose, lower the right leg about forty degrees and release that hand to the floor to show a single-leg hamstring stretch while the left side keeps its grip.
Free to use (CC0). The pose images on this page are released under CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication). Use them for drawing practice, commercial illustration, reference sheets or AI image generation; no attribution is required. A credit to PoseMaker is appreciated but optional.
Lying, Holding Legs Up pose prompt
Copy a prompt for your AI image generator. Pair it with the OpenPose skeleton in ControlNet so the generated character matches this exact pose.
General prompt
A person lies on their back on a plain floor, both straight legs raised vertically and pressed together, feet softly pointed. The hands hold the outsides of the knees with the elbows bent out to the sides; the upper back curls slightly off the floor while the hips and head stay down.
Midjourney
full body person lying on back, both straight legs raised vertically together, hands holding knees, elbows bent outward, upper back slightly curled, hips flat on floor, softly pointed feet, hamstring stretch, side view, plain studio background --ar 3:2 --style raw
Stable Diffusion
1person, full body, lying on back, legs up, legs together, straight legs, hands on knees, elbows out, upper back curled, hips on floor, pointed feet, stretching, hamstring stretch, side view, floor pose, plain background, simple background, athletic wear
Negative prompt
legs apart, bent knees, hips lifted, hands on ankles, head raised high, legs tilted toward floor, extra legs, fused legs, missing feet, extra arms, broken elbows, distorted pelvis, cropped feet, nsfw
OpenPose skeleton for ControlNet
Load the PNG into a ControlNet OpenPose unit (preprocessor: none), or import the JSON into an OpenPose editor.
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